Started in 2011 as a therapy for my Dysthymia, this blog has taken so many twists and turns along the way! Current project is Perry Miniatures Desert Rats & Afrika Korps along with the Travel Battle set.

Sunday, 29 June 2014

Fife & Drum AWI's.

Since my attempts last year at fighting AWI battles on the Commands & Colors board there have been some exciting developments that are calling me back to this period. Firstly numerous AWI scenarios have appeared over on the C&C forum and they seem to offer some nicely balanced and well thought out games.

Last year I simply replaced C&C blocks with individual 15mm figures and it worked well with what I considered good visual impact. It's nice to look back at projects occasionally so I have dragged up a few pics from one of the games last year. (Gibbo has become much larger and fluffier since then, we call him 'The Beastie' although he's nothing but, one of the softest male cats I have known). Now imagine this with 30mm figures!

The 15mm set up from last Autumn. All figures are by Peter Pig, and fine figures they are too!

General 'Gibbo' commanding the American forces!

Fife & Drum 30mm range.
I only learned a few days ago that this magnificent range of figures is now to become available in the UK from Crann Tara Miniatures. Both ranges have much in common, being sculpted by the talented Richard Ansell and both being to 1/56th scale, which makes the figures roughly 30mm tall. They are anatomically correct with true animation, none of your chunky Front Rank style chaps here, these figures are very realistic. It's been a good while since I painted 28/30mm stuff but the temptation to paint some of these is more than I can bear! Luckily, I only got eight figures painted from the Perry boxes before noticing the availability of F&D over here so I can switch without any real loss of time. The project will be a re run of the above, but in 30mm with a new hex board to suit. It's a sideline to my commission work but I can still paint maybe 12 figures a week for myself on top.

I had been following the release of the range since they began to appear over on TMP but they only been available in the US far as I know. I noticed today some new pics of the cavalry figures ...... words fail me, they are simply brilliant!

Head on over to Crann Tara to see the F&D range and of course Crann Taras own splendid 45 rebellion figures. (click).

Plastic Perry AWI's.
To be fair, for the price (around 50p each roughly) they are great value. I have a few issues however, just personal things but I'll share them.

Assembly. - Now I'm well used to fiddly work but I struggled with the arm positions on some of these figures, especially the British where the left hand is moulded on the musket so that the left arm has to be glued on to fit both arm and wrist, it just took me ages to get right, time that could have been better spent painting the things.

Pose - can't put my finger on it, but some simply look 'awkward' to me. The march continentals for example. The hanging right arms look wrong to me, I'd liked to have seem a few arms reaching round to steady the cartridge box or canteen for variation. I used a few different arms on my test paint of the continentals but they still don't look right to me.

Overall they are nice figures and great for building up large battalions, but from my perspective as a painter I'd prefer to spend the time on metal castings.

So, I have a box of each British and Continentals here that I won't be using, so if anybody can use them you can have them for £10.00 per box, postage included. Aside from the painted examples
which are of course included all is as new and still on the sprues. Paypal only please.

Going back to the English Civil War

This is the title of my other blog dedicated to painting armies of the ECW using Hinchiffe 25mm castings. I'm attempting to recreate the figures I owned over 30 years ago, the old range has been given a new lease of life by Ian Hinds of Hinds Figures Ltd and the figures are crisp and sharp just as I remember them.